Official us Time

The time for a million watches can run out.

President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet wants to close US federal broadcasters that announce official time, a ministry that has been in use since World War II. The WWV and WWVB in Colorado and the WWVH on Kauai in Hawaii transmit a signal that allows manual or automatic setting of million in time.

The WWVB continually transmits very long, 60 kHz long wave electronic time code data that is picked up by North American timepieces and remains within a split second. "When you turn those wards off, you turn off all those clocks," said Don Sullivan, who headed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) wards between 1994 and 2005.

It is argued by some that the Global Positioning System of the Federal Administration has obsoleted the earth's clock by making the time signalling system redundant, and that its spacecraft also carry time signalling, but the user disagrees because in order to operate correctly, global positioning systems must have an unimpeded visibility of a number of spacecraft in orbit. "60 kHz penetrate in a way that cannot be done by GPS," Sullivan said to VOA, declaring that the WWVB's very low frequencies could be picked up indoors, and is an important support for Global Positioning System (GPS) if opponents try to disrupt the SSS.

The WWV and WWVH transmit on a series of short wave frequency so that their signal can be picked up on a global basis. It is recognised in the budgetary paper that time signaling is used in equipment, camera and watering controls in parallel with clock synchronisation. Officers at NEIST say they cannot take a position on budgetary issues.

Whitehouse asked the Office of Management and Budget about the financing of NIST, which did not respond to a request from VOA. WWV, the oldest continuous broadcasting broadcaster in the United States, first went on television from Washington in 1919, conducted dissemination tests and played musical instruments.

The WWV has been a WWV since 1922 and has spread the official US time since 1944. NIST substations depend on highly sensitive astronomical timepieces for the precision of their time signal. Sullivan says that all three locations are very popular all over the world. It is also used to synchronise and calibrate chronometers and time switches (although slightly less accurately than receiving the radio).

Oregon ham radiologist Tom Kelly has started a bid to try to save them. Kelly's submission identifies the station as "playing a critical role in telecommunication from broadcast to science research and education," and notes that they transmit naval gale alerts, GPS satelite medical reporting, and specialized information about sun activities and wireless dispersion patterns.

Great Britain, China, Germany, Japan and Russia also have very low-frequency time transfers, but their locations are too far away to adjust watches in the United Statesutomatically. Further reductions for NIST include its environment metrology project to assess the effects of airborne pollutants on the environment and climatic changes, as well as natural gas benchmark material used by industries to lower compliance cost, and the Urban Dome research grant to determine how GHG emission can be measured for towns and territories.